On Friday morning, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said a racial slur on television, but he feels fine about it so don’t worry.

“Why pay for the Japs? Why pay for the Koreans?” he said in a discussion about the presidential election.

Could this have been an instance of an old man not knowing that using racial slurs was now considered helpful? No! He is well-aware, but he won’t apologize.

“I stand by the merits of what I said,” he told The Hill in an interview. “I was quoting the guy at the end of the bar who needlessly offends, who makes snaps [sic] decisions and doesn’t care, who suddenly says, ‘The hell with them, the Japs and the Koreans.”

“I was using it to make a point, and I would make it again,” he continued. “If someone wants to say, ‘The mick at the end of the bar,’ I wouldn’t be offended by it.”

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A quick reminder for Rep. King—you are not writing historical fiction; you don’t have to be true to what the characters would say.

In a statement to The Hill, chairperson of the Congressional Asian Caucus Rep. Judy Chu said, “Mr. King knows his words have an impact. Using the J word is disgusting and harkens back to a shameful time in our history when violence, xenophobia, and the internment of Japanese Americans were everyday phenomena.”